Information and Imagery from Ukraine

November 2015

A Russian journalist based in Paris has published her opinions about the recent terror attacks in Egypt and France. On her Facebook page, Ania Dorn speculates that neither incident bears the hallmarks of ISIS or any other terrorist organization. Rather, both appear to be the work of the Russian security services.

While this may seem outrageous to some, it must be remembered that the 1999 apartment bombings in Russia that occurred during the period of Vladimir Putin’s meteoric rise to the Russian presidency are now widely believed to have been the handiwork of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), formerly the Soviet KGB. Other terror attacks in recent years – including the ‘Nord-Ost’ siege of Moscow’s Dubrovka Theater in 2002 and the Beslan hostage crisis and massacre in southern Russia in 2004 – are likewise still shrouded in suspicious circumstances.

Victims of the 2004 Beslan school siege in Vladikavkaz, Russia. Over 330 of the 1,100 hostages were killed. (Photo by Scott Peterson / Getty Images)

But what is perhaps most interesting about Ms. Dorn’s analysis is the extent to which it answers the age-old question: Cui bono? Who benefits? The rapid drop in oil prices combined with Western-imposed sanctions has backed the Russian government and its financial-industrial oligarch sponsors into an uncomfortable position. The terror attacks could thus be interpreted as the reactions of a cornered rat.

1. Uncharacteristic of terrorism, the handwriting is too clean: a perfectly set timer was found; no traces of explosives were found. It looks like the work of well-trained military-engineering specialists whose task was to hide the possibility of identifying explosives (when properly positioned in such cases, it completely – without a trace – burns up). Terrorists generally do not have any reason to tinker with such chemical-engineering technical details (and they’ve never concerned themselves with them). This gives rise to the suspicion that the timer may have been set before the even plane arrived in Egypt, as foreign intelligence services openly stated in their press.

2. Egypt purchased the Russia-bound ‘Mistrals’ that had been denied to Russia. The cooling in relations with Egypt had been visible since the ‘April revolution,’ when it turned towards the West in its geopolitical preferences. But these are trifles. And in addition to the last trifle – we really can suggest the widening of the Suez Canal for the passage of super-tankers (international transportation of oil from the region), which Egypt is dealing with, and for which serious funding is needed.

The cost of Egypt’s Suez Canal expansion project has been estimated at $8 billion.

Should Egypt master it (the expansion of the canal) – the price of oil in Europe would drop once and for all. The terrorist attack in Egypt – directed against tourists – has caused the long-term destruction of tourism, which has been the source of half the country’s national income. And is there now any funding for over-costly projects? Furthermore, in connection with the terrorist threat, Italian contractor-specialists in the development of gas fields will quit Egypt along with unique, expensive equipment, without which this project won’t happen for a long time. And so [Egypt] will lose the opportunity to develop the largest gas field in the world. For us [Russia ~ Ed.], removing a global gas and oil-transit competitor opening up the shortest route to Europe for Middle Eastern and African oil – a very sweet coincidence.

3. The stuff about ISIS taking responsibility – anonymously – by calling AFP: this isn’t the style of terrorists. Their PR intimidation is usually heralded with more ‘glamor-chic’ – terrorist commanders play not only on our minds, but also on those of their own audiences. It’s very important to them to demonstrate credibility in their internal environment.

4. The first information with the names of the terrorists was in The Sunday Times with a link to a source from the series ‘UFO from British intelligence.’ Our [Russian ~ Ed.] media picked this up immediately and in a very friendly manner, and Western media didn’t even take it in the ear. The Sunday Times – a very secondary publication of low popularity – has been cited repeatedly in publications of a pro-Russian slant, likewise in two other (smaller) European publications – Austrian and French – provided technically (in this case, linguistically), which are held by our ‘bureau’ (I’ve been watching them a long time – references to ‘UFO’ and provocational-propaganda texts are repeated word for word – only one in German and the other in French; I turned to them, and then to the ridiculous, through the press of the newly founded DNR [Donetsk People’s Republic, a separatist Russian puppet state in Ukraine ~ Ed.], the only one that spreads this heresy in a translation). The British side has not confirmed the information. Sensations, seemingly very expected in this case, didn’t happen.

5. Our management’s behavior did not correspond to the scale of the tragedy. It could easily be described as a ‘sluggishly dutiful reaction.’

On the terrorist attack in Paris:

1. On the eve of G20 Summit it is worth, above all, understanding who benefits from the perspective of political technologies. No one – except us. The terrorist attack in Paris gives only our leadership the possibility to lighten up on the subject of the personal significance of participation in the Syrian conflict and the fight against global terrorism.

The image of a 3-year-old dead Syrian boy washed up on a Turkish beach shocked world conscience in September 2015.

2. With regard to the refugee situation, which the EU is struggling to defend with all its might (up until which they closed their eyes to reconcile the obvious contradiction – in the story of ‘the drowned boy’ whose photo emotionally ‘hacked’ the population of Europe in relation to refugees – in the form of the body of the child and the story of his father), the carrying-out of terror attacks is disadvantageous for refugees in the most extreme of circumstances, in that they will be the ones to suffer first (by the way, the camp in Calais has already been torched overnight, although I haven’t got around to finding out what happened there in detail), because they suffer the risk of a massive denial of status and expulsion from Europe. Consequently, the odds of them having been involved in the terrorist attack are almost zero.

3. According to eyewitnesses, the terrorists were light-skinned – the civilized kind, well-spoken in French, not attempting to bargain for the hostages but simply to kill as many people as possible in the room – and armed with Kalashnikovs. But this is also all too unprofitable for local inhabitants. Yes, and I have a strange kind of deja vu – something like this picture of a concert hall resembles… can you guess in three?

A dead hostage, killed by poison gas used by Russian ‘Spetsnaz’ (special services), is dragged out of Moscow’s Dubrovka Theater in October 2002.

We lost the Nord-Ost process in the ECHR [European Court of Human Rights ~ Ed.] a few years ago. Now we’re miserably losing the same process with regard to Beslan – we have only six months remaining to prove our case, but we honestly don’t want to carry out the investigation (40 Beslan families appealing to the European Court were forced to even press for the exhumation of the bodies of their children in order to prove the guilt of our unconstrained agents of the regime in a court). It’s time to hint to Europe – to say, guys, Europeans, you’re also good at choosing the means for operations against terrorism, the taking of hostages – look how many victims you have over there. So are you going to fall behind us, with our fucking international justice?

4. The attacker shouted: ‘All this is the fault of your president!’ Pardon the cynicism, but this looks like a circus with horses. The Shahids have never, as far as I know, screamed anything like that anywhere else in the execution of acts of terrorism. That’s for starters. Secondly, remind me (I could be wrong here): have terrorist attacks in the EU ever used suicide bombers’ belts? In Russia, we’ve definitely used them…

5. The appearance of [Chechen President Ramzan] Kadyrov with candid dreams of revenge against the French for Charlie Hebdo a week ago: the answer to the question of what retribution could an ‘honorary academician’ want – personally, I have no doubts.

7. I have, in addition to all sorts of numerical calculations of the physical (purely transportation) capabilities for smuggling huge numbers of refugees in a couple of months, a summer video of the landing of a huge sea vessel with a large group of refugees in rubber boats (found in open network sources). The landing was filmed from the upper deck, and among those filmed were races – negotiations were heard on it. One voice is in Arabic, two in Russian. And I have a very obsessive suspicion that our guys have not only an indirect, but a direct relationship to the dramatic flow of refugees. In my opinion, this may well be an attempt to politically destabilize the European Union, which is beneficial to us [Russia ~ Ed.] like no one else.

8. And as in the case of ISIS claiming responsibility in the case of the plane – and again through anonymous stuffing – and through a muddy Italian resource. Again – this is not the style of terrorists.

9. Sympathy and an offer of assistance to France followed surprisingly quickly from our leadership. It looks strange: 220 of our citizens perish in such a measured way that no one runs anywhere (the first publication happened only 3 hours after the plane crash – at 10:11; the president addressed the nation much later), and such a pity for the French in the middle of the night, immediately followed by Obama, 40-50 minutes after the attack. Doesn’t this give rise to any cognitive dissonance in you? It does for me. Because it smacks of PR. A lot. Especially before the G20.

1 The full quotation is: ‘We have doubts that you, dear fellow, are an informant.’ It is from the 1978 Soviet film Mesto vstrechi nelzya izmenit (You Can’t Change the Meeting Place) about post-WWII police operatives in Moscow tracking down organized crime groups terrorizing the city.

Russian emergency workers pull a corpse from a building in Moscow after a ‘terrorist’ bombing in September 1999.